“I hope you’ll be as happy,” he told her soberly.
“We are. That is, I am sure we will be.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Only a month. That’s why this is so dreadful-and why I’ve come to you for help.” Her hand shook when she set her glass down and picked up the glass of ice water.
Shayne leaned back and crossed his long legs. “Why don’t you bring me up to date from ’42? Weren’t you changing jobs when you visited here?”
“Yes. I went to work for a brokerage house when I returned to New York-Morrison and Disdale. I was Mr. Morrison’s private secretary. It was a good position and I enjoyed the work. I met Leslie six months ago when he was in New York on a business trip. He manufactures plane parts here in Miami.” She paused expectantly.
Shayne nodded. It was evident that she expected him to know something about her husband and his business.
“We fell in love almost at once,” Christine went on dreamily, as though for a moment she forgot the urgency of her call. “It was like living through the pages of a love story. I resigned my position a couple of months ago and closed my apartment and came down here. Leslie and I were married four weeks ago.” A flush came into her unrouged cheeks and the long fringe of her lashes lowered over her shining eyes.
“And?” Shayne prompted.
“Leslie is wonderful. Marriage is what I had hoped it would be. He has a beautiful home on the Beach and I have-everything any woman could want to make her happy.” Her voice broke on the final word. She closed her eyes over a sheen of tears and emptied the cognac glass.
“I’m in a hell of a jam,” she told him, straightening her body and leaning toward him. “If Leslie finds out about it our marriage will be ruined.” Her mouth and chin were taut.
“What sort of a jam?” Shayne asked mildly.
“I-owe a great deal of money,” Her voice was listless, almost dead-sounding.
“A debt contracted before your marriage?”
“No. I want you to understand about Leslie. He’s quite wealthy and terribly generous. I have charge accounts at all the stores and an extravagant allowance for household expenses, but I have no money of my own. That is, no actual cash. I had saved some money from my salary, but I spent every bit of that on my trousseau before I came to Miami. I wanted everything to be-just right.”
“And now you owe a great deal of money? A month after your marriage?” Shayne’s ragged brows contracted in a deep scowl. He watched her narrowly as she fumbled with the turquoise catch on her purse. “I’m afraid I couldn’t help you very much if you owe a lot-”
“Oh-no,” she cried out, “you don’t think that I-” She dug frantically in the purse and brought out a string of pearls. The glow of tropical twilight streaming through the windows touched the pearls with shimmering iridescence. She held them out to him and said, “I haven’t any money, Michael, but I have these. I’m sure they’re worth a great deal-at least ten thousand dollars, don’t you think?”
Shayne extended a big hand with his open palm up. She dropped the pearls into it. His gray eyes brooded upon them for a moment. He remembered another scene so much like this that it seemed an impossible coincidence. Phyllis Brighton had come to him for help on that other occasion. She, too, had brought a matched string of pearls and had offered them in payment for his help.
He said, “At least ten thousand,” and put them on the table beside his chair. “Do they belong to you?”
“Certainly.” Anger flared briefly in her eyes and her cheeks flamed. “Leslie gave them to me for a wedding present,” she explained in a stifled voice. “They were his mother’s.”
“And you want me to hock them for you?” he asked harshly.
She lifted her head quickly as though to protest, but instead she said slowly, “Yes. I suppose that’s what I want. I have to have ten thousand dollars-and I must have it tonight.”
Shayne leaned back and lit a cigarette. “I suppose you want it handled without your husband’s knowledge?”
“Yes. It has to be that way. If he ever found out-” She shuddered and her face was suddenly deathly pale. “That’s why I thought of you,” she went on resolutely. “I know there are places where you can get the money for them and they won’t ask any questions.”
“Tonight?”
“It has to be tonight-before midnight.” Her voice was agonized now. She drew in a sharp, frightened breath. “Everything depends on it.”
Shayne picked up the pearls again and let them dribble back and forth in his palm. They were worth several times ten thousand dollars. He muttered, “I presume they’re insured.”
“Oh, yes, for quite a large sum-I think.”
Shayne shook his red head stonily. “I don’t play that sort of game. Not even for an old friend of Phyl’s. Hooking an insurance company is one racket I want no part in.”
She stared at him with surprise and amazement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said angrily. “I have no intention of trying to pretend they’re lost or stolen and collect insurance on them. And I don’t want you to do anything dishonest. I’ve got to have ten thousand dollars on them tonight. After that, I’ll have to get the money somehow to redeem them,” she ended in a tone of utter despair.
“And suppose you can’t get the money? As soon as your husband finds out the pearls are gone he’ll hold the insurance company liable. How would you wriggle out of that?”
“I’ve had a replica made,” she murmured. “I can scarcely tell them apart when I hold the two together. I’m sure Leslie will never dream anything like that has happened. I wear them so rarely, I’m sure he won’t notice-at least until I can get them back.”
“You’re playing with fire,” Shayne snapped. “You’d better tell your husband the whole story. If he really loves you and has plenty of money, ten grand shouldn’t make much difference to him.”
“I can’t. You don’t understand! I can’t tell him.”
“You realize, of course, that this is a lousy way to start a marriage,” he said gently.
Two spots of color burned in her cheeks. She met his gaze defiantly. “I’m the best judge of that. I’m sorry if I’ve imposed on you.” She started to get up.
Shayne wearily gestured her back. “I haven’t said I won’t help you. But I have to know more about this thing. How much is your debt?”
She sank back in her chair. “Ten thousand dollars. I thought I told you.”
“Why does it have to be paid tonight?”
“Because-tonight’s the deadline. If I don’t pay it tonight he threatens to go to my husband.”
“Who?”
“A man named Arnold Barbizon.”
“The gambler?”
“Yes. He-owns a club on the Beach.”
“And you’ve been gambling there?”
“He has my IOU for ten thousand dollars,” she told him, turning her eyes away from his intent gaze. “If it isn’t paid by midnight tonight he’ll turn it over to Leslie.”
Shayne said, “Ten grand is a pile of cash to put in a crooked game in one month. And while you’re honeymooning, at that.”
Christine Hudson spread out her slender hands and studied her bright nails. “I know I was a fool. Leslie is out a lot in the evenings and I-” She drew a deep breath and looked up at Shayne with dark, hopeless eyes. “I’m not trying to excuse myself. I admit it’s a hell of a jam. If I can just get out of it, I will have learned my lesson, Michael.”
Shayne lifted the pearls again, held them up to the light. “You’ll take a big loss if I’m forced to raise ten thousand on these by midnight. If I had a little more time, I could do a lot better.”
She shook her head slowly and said in a low, strained voice, “I can’t help it. It has to be-tonight.”